We Talk Pre-Loved Luxury with HULA Founder Sarah Fung

From 28th November to 3rd December 2017, The Living Room by HULA takes place in the heart of Soho, Hong Kong, introducing shoppers to a curated selection of pre-loved designer clothes. Positive Luxury sat down with HULA Founder, Sarah Fung, to hear more about her inspiration behind this exciting event.

What inspired HULA to create and curate this event?

HULA is an online boutique and sustainable fashion community where members can consign items they no longer need and discover the best designer pieces for less, whilst impacting the world at the same time. This is our very first event since we launched in 2016.

I was excited to be able to get our community of thoughtful taste-makers together, to showcase our best curated product under one roof in an environment that felt different to a normal pop-up shop. To create a unique shopping space that is not only intimate and be able to offer the very best service offline, but to also get to know all our sellers, buyers and supporters more personally.

I wanted to make sure that it would not only be about the amazing product we have, it would also be about re-educating people in Hong Kong about the benefits of buying pre-loved and better quality (hence the Choose Well exhibition and Has Sustainability Become Stylish? panel discussion, which are both important elements to this event).

How did you end up working with designer Gloria Yu?

I met Gloria when I was still working at Lane Crawford (luxury retail store in Hong Kong). After I left the company, we stayed in touch and chatted about my new concept before HULA was conceived. Little did I know that Gloria was also a writer, an artist, a visionary, and also so passionate about fashion sustainability. She connected me to Christina Dean from the charity Redress, and we later featured Gloria and Christina separately as Style-Insiders on our site.

A few months ago, Gloria decided to relocate back to Hong Kong, so having the opportunity to work with her to create a project like this was inevitable and totally exciting. I knew Gloria would share a very similar vision and be able to create something that was eye-catching, thoughtful, and memorable yet tongue-in-cheek. These campaign images, titled ‘Choose Well’, showcase the designer brands we sell and highlight the quality and investment you get when you buy into them. Gloria cleverly modelled, styled, and photographed these images herself, which adds a voyeuristic depth.

Why did you choose to cover sustainability as part of the event?

In many parts of Asia, some people believe wearing pre-loved items means wearing the spirit of the person who owned it before and in turn risks passing on bad energy. I want to re-educate the community about sustainability within fashion, and was interested to find out if sustainability really has become stylish.

Having Redress as one of our charitable beneficiaries taught me so much about textiles waste. I can listen to Christina Dean talk about this till the cows come home, so she was a natural selection for this panel. I have also been a big fan of Kering ever since I knew what they stood for – they truly try to make sustainability part of their core business development instead of just an afterthought, so having a representative from them and especially The Head of Asia, Carlo Imo, was imperative.

Lastly, we wanted to add someone in the mix who works in fashion but not necessarily in sustainability, so we called in Justine Lee, Style Director of Hong Kong Tatler. Justine’s insight might help us understand how to get more people who work in the industry and, finally, consumers on board whilst still enjoying fashion.

The Living Room takes place at KONG Artspace, 3 Staunton St, Central, Hong Kong. For further details about the event, check out HULA’s website.